5 ms·

Furthermore, where else do content creators pay for the privilege of publishing their work (over $1000 usually per paper), then have those outrageous rates for

by robg 18y ago

Furthermore, where else do content creators pay for the privilege of publishing their work (over $1000 usually per paper), then have those outrageous rates for visitors to access that work?

andreyf 18y ago
where else do content creators pay for the privilege of publishing their work Do they really? I've never heard of this...
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  They're called "page charges", they are absolutely real, and yeah, they're often like $100 to $150 per article page, plus extras. Here's the price quote for the Journal of Dairy Science (which just won the Google lottery and is being rewarded with a link): http://jds.fass.org/misc/ifora.shtml http://jds.fass.org/misc/ifora.shtml
  - robg 18y ago
    Forgot to mention that for the privilege you also give up publication rights. So, let's review: You pay to publish. They charge outrageous fees for access. You retain the copyright, they retain the publication rights. To be fair, I can't imagine their business model is making anyone rich. They pay professional editors and they pump out alot of PR that's good for science. But the original complaint - access on old manuscripts - is very valid.
    - michael_nielsen 18y ago
      The largest journal company, Elsevier, made about 1.5 billion in profit last year, on about 5 billion in revenue. Not bad.
      - robg 18y ago
        Wow - link? Are they publicly traded?
        michael_nielsen 18y ago
        I dug this out of Reed-Elsevier's last financial report, for a book I'm writing. Reed-Elsevier is Elsevier's parent company, and is publicly traded. I don't have the reference immediately to hand (found it several months back), but I started with Google. It took me quite a bit of time to track down.
        razzmataz 18y ago
        Isn't Springer-Verlag a part of that publishing empire?
        michael_nielsen 18y ago
        No, Springer-Verlag is a separate journal publisher.
michael_nielsen 18y ago
Only some journals require authors to pay to publish. Nature is not one of those journals, and it's still relatively uncommon.
- robg 18y ago
  I'm not sure what field you're in, but I'm very certain Nature does charge some fees (e.g. color) if there's not page charges. Here from their website: £700 for the first color figure, £250 for each thereafter. http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/submissions/final/forms.html http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/submissions/final/forms... On each of my papers - in very reputable neuroscience journals - we've paid publication costs and fees at about $1000 per paper. And color was essential in each.
  - michael_nielsen 18y ago
    Nature (and most journals, so far as I know) charge for colour figures, but they don't have page charges. I just ran through a list of ten well-known physics journals, all from different publishers, and none has page charges, suggesting it's pretty uncommon. Most will charge for colour figures, though, and several request (but do not require) a contribution to publication costs. I've never paid that contribution.
    - robg 18y ago
      I'm told Physics is very different. They're also moving quickly away from peer-review, right? We just had a discussion on that. There are alot of costs in the review process (time and effort). If you decide to sample more broadly across disciplines, I'd be very interested in the results.
      - michael_nielsen 18y ago
        Not sure where you heard that - physics hasn't yet moved much away from peer review. I personally think it will, but it hasn't actually happened.
rglovejoy 18y ago
And even furthermore, most of the research being reported in these journals was paid for with taxpayer money.
- dcurtis 18y ago
  Most? Really? Government grants don't fund more than half of scientific research, do they?
  - robg 18y ago
    The budgets in 2008: NIH = $28B NSF = $6B That's $34B. While surely there's alot of private R&D (and more government), it's rare that I see a paper from industry, but then my field is biased against it. And there are private foundations. Does enough published research come from those private sources to outweigh publically funded studies? I wouldn't bet on it. Remember, there's a perpetual cycle in most public funding with publications. In order to get funded, you have to show a record of publishing. The priorities of private research would seem to be a very different threshold. Still, it's a solid point. You've paid for our research. Why should you have to pay to access our reports? To be fair though, I have yet to hear about complaints from journals regarding researchers who post their reports on their public websites. But that makes it hard to find things. Journals would surely squawk if there were alternative repositories.
    - hugh 18y ago
      Don't forget the Department of Energy and the various military funding agencies -- they fund an awful lot of external research as well (in addition to any unpublished stuff they might be doing internally). I'm sure the Department of Agriculture etc are also handing out plenty of grants in the relevant fields as well.
      - robg 18y ago
        Sure - that's what I meant by "more government". Problem is, I don't think you can simply look at their budgets - they do other things besides research - and their research efforts are likely much smaller. It would be interesting to see the research grant lines in their budgets if anyone knows or finds them.
albertcardona 18y ago
The whole problem of scientific publishing is entangled with what I call the evaluation problem: just as it is easier to set an exam and sort students by the grade they get (despite being nearly void of actual meaning), it's also easier to assign a value to each published paper (the infamous impact factor of the journal that swallowed it) and then sort applications for a professorship position by their "score". Of course direct interviews can tell you a lot more of the real capabilities of both student and applicant, but the inherent laziness and carelessness of bureaucratic systems (like universities and ministries of science and the like), added to the excess of applicants for any given position (in most cases), leads us to the present situation in publishing: abuse of power. Scientific publishers do what they do, unchallenged, because they can. PLoS and BMC are a first attempt to create real competition in scientific publishing. They are succeeding: both got rated high, and are respectable and well-known. Are you a scientist? Consider sending your paper to these two publishers. All your readers will get free access to your publications. The catch, though, is that publishing has a cost. Both PLoS and BMC charge anywhere between $500 and $1500 for a published paper. Then they don't charge the readers. All other journals charge subscription fees (for libraries, the fees are in the tens or even the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year), while not charging the authors one single dime (most subscription-based for-profit journals, at least in biology, do not charge for publishing). So researchers are enticed to send their papers there and be done with it, not draining grant money for the purpose. When looking at tax dollars spent, though, those researchers who publish in subscription-based for-profit journals are committing a disservice to the public that funds their research.

by robg 18y ago

Furthermore, where else do content creators pay for the privilege of publishing their work (over $1000 usually per paper), then have those outrageous rates for visitors to access that work?

andreyf 18y ago

where else do content creators pay for the privilege of publishing their work Do they really? I've never heard of this...

mechanical_fish 18y ago
They're called "page charges", they are absolutely real, and yeah, they're often like $100 to $150 per article page, plus extras. Here's the price quote for the Journal of Dairy Science (which just won the Google lottery and is being rewarded with a link): http://jds.fass.org/misc/ifora.shtml http://jds.fass.org/misc/ifora.shtml
- robg 18y ago
  Forgot to mention that for the privilege you also give up publication rights. So, let's review: You pay to publish. They charge outrageous fees for access. You retain the copyright, they retain the publication rights. To be fair, I can't imagine their business model is making anyone rich. They pay professional editors and they pump out alot of PR that's good for science. But the original complaint - access on old manuscripts - is very valid.
  - michael_nielsen 18y ago
    The largest journal company, Elsevier, made about 1.5 billion in profit last year, on about 5 billion in revenue. Not bad.
    - robg 18y ago
      Wow - link? Are they publicly traded?
      - michael_nielsen 18y ago
        I dug this out of Reed-Elsevier's last financial report, for a book I'm writing. Reed-Elsevier is Elsevier's parent company, and is publicly traded. I don't have the reference immediately to hand (found it several months back), but I started with Google. It took me quite a bit of time to track down.
        razzmataz 18y ago
        Isn't Springer-Verlag a part of that publishing empire?
        michael_nielsen 18y ago
        No, Springer-Verlag is a separate journal publisher.

michael_nielsen 18y ago

Only some journals require authors to pay to publish. Nature is not one of those journals, and it's still relatively uncommon.

robg 18y ago
I'm not sure what field you're in, but I'm very certain Nature does charge some fees (e.g. color) if there's not page charges. Here from their website: £700 for the first color figure, £250 for each thereafter. http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/submissions/final/forms.html http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/submissions/final/forms... On each of my papers - in very reputable neuroscience journals - we've paid publication costs and fees at about $1000 per paper. And color was essential in each.
- michael_nielsen 18y ago
  Nature (and most journals, so far as I know) charge for colour figures, but they don't have page charges. I just ran through a list of ten well-known physics journals, all from different publishers, and none has page charges, suggesting it's pretty uncommon. Most will charge for colour figures, though, and several request (but do not require) a contribution to publication costs. I've never paid that contribution.
  - robg 18y ago
    I'm told Physics is very different. They're also moving quickly away from peer-review, right? We just had a discussion on that. There are alot of costs in the review process (time and effort). If you decide to sample more broadly across disciplines, I'd be very interested in the results.
    - michael_nielsen 18y ago
      Not sure where you heard that - physics hasn't yet moved much away from peer review. I personally think it will, but it hasn't actually happened.

rglovejoy 18y ago

And even furthermore, most of the research being reported in these journals was paid for with taxpayer money.

dcurtis 18y ago
Most? Really? Government grants don't fund more than half of scientific research, do they?
- robg 18y ago
  The budgets in 2008: NIH = $28B NSF = $6B That's $34B. While surely there's alot of private R&D (and more government), it's rare that I see a paper from industry, but then my field is biased against it. And there are private foundations. Does enough published research come from those private sources to outweigh publically funded studies? I wouldn't bet on it. Remember, there's a perpetual cycle in most public funding with publications. In order to get funded, you have to show a record of publishing. The priorities of private research would seem to be a very different threshold. Still, it's a solid point. You've paid for our research. Why should you have to pay to access our reports? To be fair though, I have yet to hear about complaints from journals regarding researchers who post their reports on their public websites. But that makes it hard to find things. Journals would surely squawk if there were alternative repositories.
  - hugh 18y ago
    Don't forget the Department of Energy and the various military funding agencies -- they fund an awful lot of external research as well (in addition to any unpublished stuff they might be doing internally). I'm sure the Department of Agriculture etc are also handing out plenty of grants in the relevant fields as well.
    - robg 18y ago
      Sure - that's what I meant by "more government". Problem is, I don't think you can simply look at their budgets - they do other things besides research - and their research efforts are likely much smaller. It would be interesting to see the research grant lines in their budgets if anyone knows or finds them.

albertcardona 18y ago

The whole problem of scientific publishing is entangled with what I call the evaluation problem: just as it is easier to set an exam and sort students by the grade they get (despite being nearly void of actual meaning), it's also easier to assign a value to each published paper (the infamous impact factor of the journal that swallowed it) and then sort applications for a professorship position by their "score". Of course direct interviews can tell you a lot more of the real capabilities of both student and applicant, but the inherent laziness and carelessness of bureaucratic systems (like universities and ministries of science and the like), added to the excess of applicants for any given position (in most cases), leads us to the present situation in publishing: abuse of power. Scientific publishers do what they do, unchallenged, because they can. PLoS and BMC are a first attempt to create real competition in scientific publishing. They are succeeding: both got rated high, and are respectable and well-known. Are you a scientist? Consider sending your paper to these two publishers. All your readers will get free access to your publications. The catch, though, is that publishing has a cost. Both PLoS and BMC charge anywhere between $500 and $1500 for a published paper. Then they don't charge the readers. All other journals charge subscription fees (for libraries, the fees are in the tens or even the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year), while not charging the authors one single dime (most subscription-based for-profit journals, at least in biology, do not charge for publishing). So researchers are enticed to send their papers there and be done with it, not draining grant money for the purpose. When looking at tax dollars spent, though, those researchers who publish in subscription-based for-profit journals are committing a disservice to the public that funds their research.